


Too Bold

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (everything with Lotor should probably be tagged that), Awkward Sexual Situations, Developing Relationship, Emotional Baggage, Enemies to Lovers, Even evil has standards, F/M, Friends With Benefits, It Doesn't Mean Anything, Magical Tattoos, No Strings Attached, Sex Magic, Snark, Trust Issues, Voice Kink, enemies to lovers to friends (?), strategic sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 05:58:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14129586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When Allura approaches him with a problem and a proposition, her solution seems fairly straightforward. It's a strategic opportunity, and he’d be a fool to waste it. No emotional investment required.Well. There shouldn't be.





	Too Bold

**Author's Note:**

> [Here's the song inspo for the title.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG3VcCAlUgE)
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimers: I’m going to continue doing what I have been, and writing Allura as the Altean equivalent of somewhere between 28-32, although that’s with the knowledge that that could translate to several hundred years old. They’re both written as Grown Ass Adults here, so if you are underage or if that simply isn’t your cup of tea, this is your warning. As far as I’m concerned, they see each other as social equals. If that’s not a dynamic you’re cool with, this fic is not the fic for you.
> 
> Also, I’m sorry, but I am incapable of writing smut and having to use the word ‘quiznak’. Can’t do it. Not today. So you get good old-fashioned swear words instead. Just pretend they’ve been translated from Altean or something.
> 
> Also also, for once in my life I’m too tired to focus on weird-ass xenobiology, so this is fairly vanilla in that realm. No tentacles, no weird junk, no abnormal bodily fluids, nothing too weird. Go figure.
> 
> In search of a beta for future stuff, cause it'd be good to get someone else's eyes on stuff before I post, you know?

In the dark like this, she doesn’t have to look at him, doesn’t have to think about _who_ it is she’s in bed with. And he wants to see her. Four hells, he would give almost anything to be able to see her, but one of her terms was “lights out”. So here they are, in the pitch dark.

This isn’t part of the plan. His father and the witch had needed a diversion while they’d found a way to restore the emperor’s body to its former glory. They’d made demands of him that he could never possibly live up to, and he’d reluctantly agreed to try.

And _then_.

Then Allura had happened.

She’d been the key to everything. Getting the coalition in check, bringing Voltron to their side, everything had hinged on gaining her approval, if not her trust. She would never trust him, and he knew it. Stars would burn out and the empire would fall and she would go to her grave without ever really trusting him. Which was the smart choice, of course, but still. He had a plan for that.

But he hadn’t planned for this.

* * *

Allura had sent him a comm invitation, requesting a private meeting after hours. He’d accepted, assuming it was about the most recent mission to Quolinar to retrieve supplies. Their mission hadn’t gone badly, it simply hadn’t gone as planned, in part because their intelligence was outdated and Voltron had run into a renegade Galra fleet. He’d been expecting her to talk to him about it for days. The usual, of course. “Rein in the commanders, make them respect you or we’ll never regain the trust of those that have suffered under the reign of the empire.”

He’d unenthusiastically slumped into a too-small chair across the table from her. It was late, he was tired, and it took a minute before the lack of an immediate dressing down caught him off-guard. She surveyed him with a steaming mug in her hands and the informality of the meeting finally struck him as odd.

“Princess,” he acknowledged. “What exactly is this about?”

“We’ve been able to build a number of…mutually beneficial arrangements.”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to propose another. I’ve been dealing with a side effect of accepting the White Lion’s gift lately, and I hoped you might be able to help me with it. “

“Enlighten me. I’m happy to do what I can.”

“I’ve found myself with an excess of quintessence, and while it might be advantageous in some situations, too often I’ve found myself feeling...too much, I suppose. Everything I feel seems magnified. I’d handle it myself, but my outbursts are making the current internal disputes within the team worse. I find myself too often on edge with the others.” It was uncharacteristically forthright coming from her. “I need to burn off the extra energy somehow.”

It took him a moment to wrap his head around the concept. To have so much, too much quintessence at one’s disposal…it was intriguing and posed an interesting challenge. His mind immediately went to the plasma that harvested quintessence could be converted to for storage. Even through a the distraction, he started mentally running mass-energy calculations, theorizing just how much energy they might be dealing with here. “I suppose we could see about finding a way to expend some of the energy until we find a way to store it for your future use, but…”

“I have an idea, but I need your help. That’s why I asked you to meet with me.” The silence stretched, and it occurred to him that he had missed something.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand what you’re getting at.”

She told him.

It wasn’t a particularly difficult concept to grasp, but she seemed to approach it with almost clinical formality. “You said ‘mutually beneficial’. What exactly do you foresee happening?”

Allura sniffed into her cup of tea and took a sip. “That’s the most elegant ‘what’s in it for me?’ I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s a reasonable request. I’d like to know what I’m getting myself into.”

“Well, we’ve seen you have the capacity for Altean alchemy, so there’s the possibility you may be able to harness any quintessence released. Failing that…stress relief?” She shrugged. “By no means do you have to say yes, I simply thought perhaps…”

“Why me? Why not one of the others?”

“I don’t think any of them are suited to this sort of thing. And with the risk of compromising the team dynamic, or hurting one of them....” She frowned and trailed off.

Lotor stared at her for a long minute, trying to work out exactly what it was she was saying. When it hit him, he very nearly laughed. “You’re afraid you’d break one of the humans.” He hoped she couldn’t hear the rasp in his voice, and tried to cover it up with a mix of amusement and confidence.

And there, he’d finally managed to ruffle her feathers, and she flushed. “There are any number of reasons I don’t want to involve one of the other paladins. And if you aren’t willing, you can simply say no.”

He didn’t know what he was getting into, but he was keen to find out. “I’d be happy to be of service.”

Even after his initial agreement to her conditions, she had given him a couple of days to reconsider. He recognized it as a courtesy, but the more the thought about it, the more invested he became. It was a strategic opportunity, and he’d be a fool to waste it. Simple as that.

* * *

It all starts out tolerably well, once they’re past the initial awkwardness of stripping down and finding each other with the lights out. It takes some time to find what she reacts to, but even so, her response feels lackluster. Distant. He can feel how her body tenses and relaxes, and the little hitches of breath, but little more.

“Is it something I’m doing wrong, or is it simply because it’s me?” Part of him doesn’t want to know the answer, but this plan isn’t moving forward until they change something.

She doesn’t answer and that’s telling enough. He pushes himself up and sits back on his haunches. “We’re not doing this until you decide you want to.”

“Quite frankly I’d be obliged if you’d just fuck me and get it over with,” she says bluntly.

“Excuse me?” He chokes on momentary surprise. “ _You_ asked _me_ to sleep with _you_ , Because I’m convenient, resilient enough to handle if something goes wrong with the quintessence, and it allows you to avoid an entanglement with one of the other paladins or, I don’t know, someone else. I understood that from the start, but your lack of enthusiasm is uncomfortable at best.”

“That’s not…”

“No, listen.” He’d thought he could handle this, but his thoughts are scattered. Her reluctance feels like a rejection, and that complicates things. He runs his hand through his hair to sweep it out of his face as he tries to put it into words. “We still have to be able to work together, and if this is going to ruin that…if you can’t separate this arrangement from what we already have, which we know _works_ , I’m not willing to take the risk.” And isn’t that a novel concept? Being unwilling to take a risk, because for the first time in his life, an entire empire hangs in the balance. He has something to lose.

“Wait.” Her hand catches his wrist as he moves back, clamping down with unerring accuracy, even in the dark. “I’m perfectly capable of detaching my personal life from my politics. I just…” she seems to struggle for words, “I don’t want to give you the impression I’m more invested in this than I am.”

It’s absurd. “What, is that all?”

There’s a beat of silence, and then, “Yes…?”

“I was under the impression that we’d already agreed not to let sentiment play a role in this arrangement. If you’re concerned about me getting attached, I assure you, not going to happen.”

Another beat of silence, and then, of all things, she snorts. He can’t see the humor in it, but it’s better than the stony silence. “Typically not something you’d say when trying to talk someone into sleeping with you.”

“It wasn’t meant to offend.”

“And I’m not at all offended.” She makes a little hum of consideration. “My approach to this may have been poorly planned.”

“I’d say. You’ve done a terrible job of seducing me so far.”

At that, she actually laughs, and the tension in the air loosens. “What do you want, a serenade and a bouquet of perra lilies? Poetry?”

“I suppose your opinion of poetry might be different from mine. Most Galra poetry is about battles and ripping enemies limb from limb.” He rattles off the first thing that comes to mind, a brief passage of an epic poem in an ancient dialect.

“I don’t recognize that, is that old Galra? What does it mean?”

They’re still sitting in the dark, but the awkwardness has gone out of it. It’s devolved into a sort of playful banter, and that’s so much easier. “He spoke, in spite of the swollen, livid wound, knowing he’d unwound his string of days on earth, seen as much as the gods would grant him; all worldly pleasure was gone, as life would go, soon.” He sighs. “Death, too. There’s a lot of death in Galra poetry.”

“And _that’s_ what you thought would be apropos?”

“In my defense, it’s one of the most well-known epics surviving from the earliest days of the empire. It’s quite interesting if you…”

“Oh, shut up and get your hands on me already,” she grumbles.

Lotor pauses, wondering if he’ll be able to put things back on track. “I’ve acceded to all of your conditions thus far, I have one of my own.”

“I’m listening?”

“At least let me be thorough enough to make it worth your while.” He pushes her carefully and she caves, dropping back to the sheets. He runs his hands down her sides, pushing hard to give her what she wants and angling the pads of his fingers just enough to scrape her skin ever so lightly with his nails. She gives a gasp and a quiet “yes” and his heart seems to skip a beat as a faint pink glow sparks in her cheeks.

“What was that?”

“Yes, alright, we’ll try it your way.”

This time, his efforts are returned enthusiastically. The light kiss he offers is brief, and there’s only a moment of hesitation as her pulse ratchets up and her breath quickens. Then her mouth is back on his, and she returns the kiss like a wave cresting. It’s the start of a surge of enthusiasm, hands and hips pushing into his skin eagerly.

Naked, it’s clear that not all of her strength is purely Altean ability. He can feel muscle shifting under his hands as works his way down her throat and breasts. He kisses down her stomach, then nips lightly at her skin just below her belly button. She gives a surprised yelp that bubbles over into laughter as her stomach tenses. Her markings dance, briefly flaring up before settling back to a soft flicker as she finally starts to relax.

It doesn’t last. As he dips lower, she tenses and suddenly there’s a sharp grip in his hair, holding him back. “There’s no need for…”

“I want to.”

It’s hard to read her reaction, but her hand loosens in silent assent. She lets him slide down between her legs, and when he finally gets his mouth on her, she moans, quiet and low. She’s like nothing he’s ever tasted, summer and quintessence and woman, heady and intoxicating. The dying light of her marks reawakens, bright enough that when he looks up from between her legs, he can see more than just the outline of her. She’s stunning, muscle and curves and power and grace.

“Please don’t look at me like that.”

“What do you want me to do, close my eyes?” he says, exasperated. “Give me something to work with here, I want to know what you like.” Her mouth hardens and she frowns, and for a moment he wishes he _had_ closed his eyes. Allura displeased is discouraging on its own, but worse, it makes him doubt himself. He crushes the brief thought that he doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve her in any way, shape, or form, and returns to his task in earnest.

Lotor teases for a moment, then plunges forward, earning a surprised gasp and a single quick buck of her hips before she regains control. She’s slick enough for him to ease a finger into her, then two. He crooks them carefully, trying different angles until she claps her hand over her mouth to muffle the noise.

And that’s not what he wants, so he takes a momentary break to reach up with his free arm, gripping her elbow and gently pulling her hand away from her mouth. “Don’t, please. I want to hear you.” 

“Oh.” Her marks, which had started on her face and chest, flicker and bleed faint light all over her body. They brighten a bit at that, and he’s so fascinated he half forgets what he’s doing. He wants to taste them, to see if they taste of residual iron and crisp greens like the aftereffects of using quintessence.

Allura’s head drops back to the pillow as he gets his tongue back on her, and her words melt into a mixture of moans she tries to bite down on and breathy little gasps. He has no idea how long he’s at it, but he could lose himself between her legs and in her voice. The noises she makes high in her throat as he works her with his tongue are delicious. Muscles flutter around his fingers and the tension in her body is like a bowstring pulled taut. He moans into her and the steady stream of small noises coming from her stops, cut off by a gasp.

Her marks flare as she comes, trembling around his fingers and making what might be the sweetest noise he’s ever heard. It’s so ungodly hot he gulps down a breath and rolls his throbbing cock against the mattress for some semblance of relief. It doesn’t help.

When Allura comes down she nudges him away a bit, her hand returning to his hair and tipping his head up. He slowly lifts his mouth away, but doesn’t move his fingers as he takes her in. She’s flushed and a bit disheveled, but this time she unabashedly meets his eyes, reservations gone. Her hand tightens at the back of his neck and pulls him down inexorably. She kisses hard and deep, like she’s making up for lost time.

“Are you sure?”

“We’ve already committed to being thorough, I don’t see any reason I wouldn’t be.”

“If you’re not…” Her change in attitude is disorienting, and he tries to give her the chance to back out, but she isn’t having it. Her leg hitches up, wrapping around his hip and pulling him closer, and he can’t help but groan at the friction. 

She guides him into her and he swears in two long-forgotten languages. They’ve both been dead for hundreds of years but Allura smirks at him like she understands them anyway, wrapping her legs around him and sheathing him to the hilt.

For a moment he can’t think. Distantly his mind registers her heat, her wetness, but it’s nothing to the way her power drags him down like an undertow. The thrum of quintessence that flows through her is overwhelming, intoxicating in a way he can’t escape. 

A wave of her power crests and breaks over him, and as it retreats he gathers himself and moves. At the first slow withdrawal, he leans in to catch her lips. The slow, gliding thrust back in is euphoric, and she gasps into his mouth and digs her nails into his sides.

The quintessence pulses through her slowly, the time between surges a steady wavelength. Each time it crests, it brings with it the overwhelming need to get closer to the core of her. If he could claw his way into her chest and curl himself around the nucleus of that power, he’d do it, consequences be damned. It doesn’t seem possible that she could contain that sort of power within her without bursting, and the need for release makes sense in a way it hadn’t before. It’s deep and slow and thorough. He nearly loses himself in the rhythm of it and the soft, sweet noises Allura makes. 

It comes as a surprise, then, when she shoves one of his shoulders backward and pushes, shifting her hips and using newfound leverage to flip them around. The triumphant expression on her face once she’s on top is almost too much. “Fuck,” he gasps and clutches her hips, stopping her dead. “Oh fuck. Just…stay still for a moment. Please just...don’t move.”

Allura snorts. “And here I thought those hundreds of years of conquest might have led to better endurance.”

“First of all,” he struggles for words once he manages to pull back from the edge, “I’m a strategist and a scholar, not a warlord, conquest isn’t the word I’d…” his argument dissolves into a moan as she rolls her hips into his hands.

When he pulls himself together again, she grins at him, a pale flash of teeth stained rosy by the pink light. “Oh, is that all?”

“It’s been awhile. Ah. Since I’ve found someone worth my time.”

“Try 10,000 years some time,” she says with a dry laugh.

“You said you were in stasis, that doesn’t…!”

“Just lie back and take it.” She leans forward and splays her hands across his chest for leverage as she slides down the length of his cock.

The way her hips rise and her thighs tense as she rides is wonderful, but it’s the way her marks move that truly captivates him. She grinds down on him purposefully, chasing her release at a steady pace.

He can feel the power running under her skin, the deep thrum of it overflowing and bubbling up, letting off effervescent sparks that only seem to grow more intense as she focuses. A pang of jealousy and want hits him, the knowledge that he will never have anything even close to the potential she has. The _wanting_ feels like it might kill him.

He has the very sudden, disorienting feeling that it _will_ kill him. 

“I’m close,” he says abruptly.

“Not yet.” She slows, but only slightly. Her eyes are wide and unfocused, but her words are still clear. “Me too, but I need the quintessence to burn off or transfer, I’m not sure if...”

He groans deep in his chest and slumps back, trying to breathe through the intensity of it all. Even so, he knows he’ll only last so long. “Allura, please, I’m...”

She leans forward, her marks shifting and brightening as she braces herself on his chest. “Say it again.”

“Please, I’m…”

“My name, say it again.”

“Allura…” it’s a plea, he knows it’s pathetic but stars, he is not going to lose it first with her this close. “Allura, please.”

Her breath trips and there’s a blaze of light that sears his eyes as she shudders through a second climax. The space of a breath later, a wave of quintessence punches him in the chest like a physical blow and the world seems to shatter behind his eyes.

* * *

He hadn’t planned for this. Quite frankly, he’d hardly dared consider the possibility of their arrangement actually working as intended _,_ but he can still feel the faint crackle of transplanted quintessence in his chest. It seems to fizzle across his skin, concentrated high on his cheeks. He suspects that if he looks in a mirror, he’ll find his marks glowing.

In the breathy fucked-out silence afterward, he finds himself considering the implications of a more permanent arrangement. With Allura at his side, he doesn’t need them. He would never need them. The witch could rot into the annals of history, the last of his father’s will could waste away, and it wouldn’t matter. Together, they could return the empire to glory and prosperity, even a semblance of peace.

It’s a strategic move, he tells himself. A carefully calculated tactical choice made by countless millennia of monarchs before him.

And Allura would make for an undeniably enchanting Empress.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, this poor idiot is done for. There’s more I’ve got outlined but I don’t know if I’ve got the energy/time/desire to write it all out. It's probably the start of a series.
> 
> Extra credit points to anyone who knows the passage I bastardized for Lotor’s little poetry shtick and why it’s actually hilarious coming from him. So long, turtle-man, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
> 
> Questions, comments, and corrections always welcome!


End file.
